Erdogan Moves to Shut Schools in Blow to Gulen Followers

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s government submitted a bill to parliament to shut down
about 4,000 prep schools, about a quarter of them linked to
U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Erdogan’s allies described a December investigation into
corruption as an attack orchestrated by Gulen because of
government plans to shut down prep schools. In his year-end
address to the nation, Erdogan said that the “December 17 plot
was an assassination attempt hidden in a corruption package.”
Gulen denies the allegations.

The bill orders the closing of exam preparation schools by
Sept. 1, 2015, and offers government jobs to teachers and
incentives to owners if they convert their institutions into
regular schools that follow the national curriculum. Incentives
include free land for 25 years and a government contribution for
the students, the bill said. The plan was announced last year,
sparking the conflict between Erdogan and the Gulen movement.

“No one will be mistreated,” Education Minister Nabi Avci
said today. “There are measures to prevent small prep schools
from facing difficulty.”

The issue is important to Gulen’s followers, who teach
about 400,000 of the 1.2 million prep-school students. The
schools offer additional training to students preparing for
exams from elementary schools to universities.

Erdogan has removed thousands of police officers and
prosecutors suspected of ties to Gulen’s movement, while pro-government media have targeted companies for alleged links to
the cleric.

The government today reassigned more than 100 prosecutors
in western city of Izmir, including one who was investigating
allegations of bribery and rigging tenders by state rail and
port management, Hurriyet newspaper said without saying where it
got the information.